5. Conclusions and recommendations

5.

Conclusions and recommendations

5.1

State of the Internet in

Connectivity infrastructure: a

Ethiopia

measure based on international

The Mosaic Group has developed a

and intranational backbone

framework for characterizing the state

bandwidth, exchange points, and

of the Internet in a nation. They

last mile access methods.

consider six dimensions, each of which

has five ordinal values, ranging from

Organizational infrastructure: a

zero (non existent) to 4 (highly

measure based on the state of

developed).

the ISP industry and market

conditions.

The dimensions are as follow:

Sophistication of use: a measure

Pervasiveness: a measure based

characterizing usage from

on users per capita and the

conventional to highly

degree to which non technicians

sophisticated and driving

are using the Internet.

innovation.

Geographic dispersion: a

Ethiopian values for these parameters

measure of the concentration of

are shown below (for the methodology

the Internet within a nation, from

see Annex 1).

none or a single city to

nationwide availability.

5.1.1 Pervasiveness

Pervasiveness in Ethiopia is rated at

Sectoral absorption: a measure

1,  experimental. Even assuming an

of the degree of utilization of the

optimistic estimate of 60'000 Internet

Internet in the education,

users out of a population of almost

commercial, health care and

55 million, the user rate is of

public sectors.

only 0.092 per cent. The user

 Figure 9: State of the Internet in Ethiopia

Dimension

Value

Pervasiveness

4

Pervasiveness

1

3

Sophistication of

Geographic

Geographic Dispersion

1.5

2

use

dispersion

1

Sectoral Absorption

0.5

0

Connectivity Infrastructure

1

O rganizational

Sectoral

Organizational Infrastructure

1

infrastructure

absorption

Sophistication of Use

1

Connectivity

infrastructure

TOTAL

6

Source: ITU adapted from Mosaic Group methodology. Online at http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/gdiff/

quest.htm.

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